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AMONG THE TREES 



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Among the Trees 



BY 

WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT 



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FROM DESIGNS BY JERVIS McENTEE, ENGRAVED BY HA R LEY 



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NEW YORK 
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

Fourth Avenue and Twenty-third Street 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1874, by 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, 
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



John F. Trow S: Son, 

Printers and Elkctkotypf.rs, 

205-213 Hast -s.it h St., 

NEW YORK. 




Oh ye who love to overhang the spri 
And stand by running waters, ye whose 
Make beautiful the rocks o'er which 
Who pile with foliage the great hills 
A paradise upon the lonely plain, * 
Trees of the forest and the open field 
Have ye no sense of being? 




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The pure air, which I breathe with gladness 
In gushes o'er your delicate lungs, your 
All unenjoyed ? When on your Winter 
The sun shines warm, have ye no dreams 
And, when the glorious Spring-time comes 
Have ye no joy of all your bursting buds, 
And fragrant blooms, and melody of birds 
To which your young leaves shiver ? 








Do ye strive 
And wrestle with the wind, yet know it not ? 
Feel ye no glory in your strength when he, 
The exhausted Blusterer, flies beyond the hills, I 
And leaves you stronger yet ? Or have ye not 
A sense of loss when he has stripped your leaves, 
Yet tender, and has splintered your fair boughs ? | 
Does the loud bolt that smites you from the cloud 
And rends you, fall unfelt ? 



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Do there not run 
Strange shudderings through your fibers when 

the axe 
Is raised against you, and the shining blade 
Deals blow on blow, until, with all their boughs, /^\J*g£ 
Your summits waver and ye fall to earth ? 

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Know ye no sadness when the hurricane 
Has swept the wood and snapped its sturdy stems 
Asunder, or has wrenched, from out the soil, 
The mightiest with their circles of strong roots, 
And piled the ruin all along his path ? 

Nay, doubt we not that under the rough rind, 
In the green veins of these fair growths of earth, 
There dwells a nature that receives delight 
From all the gentle processes of life, 
And shrinks from loss of being. Dim and faint 
May be the sense of pleasure and of pain, 
As in our dreams ; but, haply, real still. 




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Our sorrows touch you not. We watch beside 

The beds of those who languish or who die, 

And minister in sadness, while our hearts 

Offer perpetual prayer for life and ease 

And health to the beloved sufferers. 

But ye, while anxious fear and fainting hope 

Are in our chambers, ye rejoice without. 

The funeral goes forth ; a silent train 

Moves slowly from the desolate home ; our hearts 

Are breaking as we lay away the loved, 

Whom we shall see no more, in their last rest, 

Their little cells within the burial-place. 

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Ye have no part in this distress ; for still 
The February sunshine steeps your boughs 
And tints the buds and swells the leaves within ; 
While the song-sparrow, warbling from her perch, 
Tells you that Spring is near. 







The wind of May 
Is sweet with breath of orchards, in whose boughs 
The bees and every insect of the air 
Make a perpetual murmur of delight, 
And by whose flowers the humming-bird hangs poised 
In air, and draws their sweets and darts away. 
The linden, in the fervors of July, 
Hums with a louder concert. When the wind 
Sweeps the broad forest in its summer prime, 
As when some master-hand exulting sweeps 
The keys of some great organ, ye give forth 
The music of the woodland depths, a hymn 
Of gladness and of thanks. 




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The hermit-thrush IT 
Pipes his sweet note to make your arches ring. 
The faithful robin, from the wayside elm, 
Carols all day to cheer his sitting mate. 
And when the Autumn comes, the kings of earth, 
In all their majesty, are not arrayed 
As ye are, clothing the broad mountain-side, 
And spotting the smooth vales with red and 

gold. 
While, swaying to the sudden breeze, ye flingj 
Your nuts to earth, and the brisk squirrel 

comes 
To gather them, and barks with childish glee^ 
And scampers with them to his hollow oak. 



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Thus, as the seasons pass, ye keep alive* 
The cheerfulness of nature, till in time 
The constant misery which wrings the heart 
Relents, and we rejoice with you again, *&^ 
And glory in your beauty ; till once more 
We look with pleasure on your vanished leaves, 
That gayly glance in sunshine, and can hear, 
Delighted, the soft answer which your boughs 
Utter in whispers to the babbling brook. 



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Ye have no history. I cannot know 
Who, when the hillside trees were hewn away, 
Haply two centuries since, bade spare this oak, 
Leaning to shade, with his irregular arms, 
Low-bent and long, the fount that from rrjs roots 
Slips through a bed of cresses toward the bay. 



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I know not who, but thank him that he 

left 
The tree to flourish where the acorn fell, 
And join these later days to that far time 
While yet the Indian hunter drew the bow 
In the dim woods, and the white woodman first 
Opened these fields to sunshine, turned the soil 
And strewed the wheat. An unremembered 

Past 
Broods, like a presence, 'mid the long gray 

boughs 
Of this old tree, which has outlived so long 
The fitting generations of mankind. 




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Ye have no history. I ask in vain 



Who planted on the slope this lofty group ^ffe r ^> m«3~ 
Of ancient pear-trees that with spring-time burst 
Into such breadth of bloom. One bears a scar 
Where the quick lightning scored its trunk, yet 






Who it was that laid .. 



still 
It feels the breath of Spring, and every May 
Is white with blossoms 
Their infant roots in earth, and tenderly 
Cherished the delicate sprays, I ask in vain, 
Yet bless the unknown hand to which I owe 
This annual festival of bees, these songs L& 
Of birds within their leafy screen, these shouts 
Of joy from children gathering up the fruit 



Shaken in August from th< 



iin£f boup"h< 





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Ye that my hands have planted, or have spared, 
Beside the way, or in the orchard-ground, S$fo 
Or in the open meadow, ye whose boughs ilBgffi^%sJ£ ; 
With every summer spread a wider shade, 
Whose herd in coming years shall lie at rest ; 'f fefij 
Beneath your noontide shelter ? . ^.^£MWf- 

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Who shall pluck «| 

Your ripened fruit ? who grave, as was the wont sistfyM'f? 
Of simple pastoral ages, on the rind ^' /WO* 

Of my smooth beeches some beloved name 7_ \ Mi 
Idly I ask ; yet may the eyes that look f(^# f 1 ^^ 

Upon you, in your later, nobler growth, _ '-- #Wl^%^ ' 
Look also on a nobler age than ours ; 

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An age when, in the eternal strife between 
Evil and Good, the Power of Good shall win 
A grander mastery ; when kings no more 
Shall summon millions from the plough to learnf 
The trade of slaughter, and of populous realms 
Make camps of war ; when in our younger land 

The hand of ruffian Violence, that now ^ 

if 
Is insolently raised to smite, shall fall 

Unnerved before the calm rebuke of law, 

And Fraud, his sly confederate shrink, in shame ^Y^jj^y 



Back to his covert, and forego his prey 



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